My Story - pt. 3, following the rules.

Note to all mysterious Internet beings: If you are reading this, you might want to read parts 1 and 2 first - it really helps! Also, please take an opportunity to become something more than a mysterious internet being by responding - then at least you won't be mysterious anymore. If you want you can even do it anonymously and remain mysterious!

Along with this dual life, there came a list of consequences associated with spending time in each sphere. In one column, titled “Christian,” things like success, health, heaven, happiness and wealth were intimately connected with holy living. The second column, titled “world,” contained items such as sickness, poverty, broken marriages, depression, a marginal life and, of course, Hell as the final destination.

We were encourage to spend time with God outside of the church doing things like praying in our prayer closets (aren't most people are coming out of the closet these days!) and making appointments for private time with God. When life was tough we were told to press into God, search our hearts for the worldly things that separate us from Him and leave them at the altar of sacrifice (creepy, huh?).

Really, this two-column system is a pretty easy way to live the Christian life. It’s much simpler to live by a list of do’s and don’ts’ and to have a God who is, by nature, angry and ready to smite those who do a don’t. When you are smitten, you know it and change your behavior, and then God’s happy again. Poor behavior brings punishment; good behavior brings blessings. What could be clearer?

The best part of this way of living is that it works. Just so long as you don’t ever encounter economic recession, or get sick, or… open your eyes to reality.

Carl Jung once said, “Without pain there can be no consciousness.” And, if experience is any judge, Dr. Jung was right. Pain is the experience that finally opened my eyes to the truth of my faith and practice. Through this pain God worked, granting me the gift of a reality check, which completely turned my faith upside down and lovingly led me into the new adventure of faith I now travel.

Just before I went off to college, the people of my church prayed over me, “prophesying” about my future. These prophetic utterances exclusively contained visions of success, items from column one. I was told I would be a man of influence and wisdom (read class president), that I would excel with my studies and become a great pastor in a huge church (read upwardly mobile) and that my future would be full of happiness (read a nice house, 2.5 children and a wife who plays the piano).

The only problem with this vision of my future is: It never happened.

Questions for you to ponder - and respond, please!

What do your two lists look like? What's on them? How has living by these rules helped you? Harmed you? Have you ever been prophesied over (Truly or falsely)? Have you ever experienced a pain that brought you to consciousness?

My Story - pt. 2, Life Words.

Let me explain last weeks post a little more.

I grew up in a conservative “Evangelical” home in the great state of Alaska. From the time I was in third grade (about a year after seeing “The Dark Crystal”) my family went to church every Sunday at our beautiful stained glass and steepled Sothern Baptist Church.

At some point this church changed pastors, and the incoming pastor had a decidedly closed view on faith. He withdrew our church’s participation in local ecumenical ministry, stating that the Sothern Baptist theology was superior to that of all other faiths and that believing otherwise amounted to heresy. Granted, this is my adult interpretation of what happened, but my parents’ response seems to support my belief: We left.

At the time, we lived across the street from an intensely Pentecostal Assemblies of God Church, and to my great surprise it was here that our wanderings led us. My parents received the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit, with evidence of speaking in tongues,” and we jumped into charismata with both feet. My father quickly became the worship leader and my sister and I were thrust into the life of “part-time” PKs (preachers’ kids.)

These two denominational experiences were worlds apart. For a time I struggled with a sort of denominational schizophrenia, never quite able to figure out how I should act in church. Should I be shouting “Hallelujah” or sitting quietly and occasionally nodding my head with an “Amen” under my breath? While the differences between these expressions of faith are vast and potentially confusing to a child, what I am most struck by today is not their differences but the message they share in common.

Finding footing in the holiness movement, both congregations fervently taught a pious, radical Christian life, separate from the world around it. Separation from the “world” was a theological imperative for the “true” Christian life. “Come out from them and be separate,” the preachers shouted at us (2 Corinthians 6:17, Isaiah 52:11). More than any one sermon, this cry became a rallying call to all believers. The call was to create a divide between the sacred and the secular, holy and profane, God and the devil.

In response, the “Thou Shalt Not” list was formed which prohibited everything from drinking and smoking to playing cards. The sermons often targeted one of these banned practices and condemned those who partook as “friends of the world,” which, according to the book of James, is akin to being an “enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4.)

The central truth of the preaching was correct, I suppose; as people marked with the title “little Christ,” we are set apart, holy and distinctly different from the “world” around us. However, in so focusing on this one aspect of Christian living, congregations, myself included, fell into the ancient trap of extreme pious differentiation; the result of which is, on a cultural level, irrelevance. (Ancient Judaism, Christians at different points of history and extreme Islam have all landed in this same trap.)

There are moments in life where words are spoken to a person and they seep into the recipient’s psyche (or soul, depending on your theology and philosophy) and stay there like a fly stuck in the globe of a light. I have heard these statements called “life messages,” because they stay with you your whole life. Sometimes these messages can be positive and life giving, other times they can be destructive.

This separatist, holiness teaching of my early Christian development became the latter for me; it became the hammer that shatters the crystal and divides the species into two, one good and the other, not so much. Rather than making a more Godly person, holiness created two separate spheres in which I had to operate; dual lives each ruled by their own gods.

Question for you, How has your experience with "church" shaped your faith views? What life words have stuck with you and formed who you are today?(these can be from parents, friends, enemies, pastors, even the culture.)

More to come...

My story part 1. As promised

My story is not a new story. Thousands upon thousands of pages have been inked, and sentences carefully crafted, to tell similar stories through books, scripts and songs. Gallons upon gallons of paint have been applied to countless canvases to express the parts of the story that words cannot explain. My story is the human story of the journey toward wholeness; the journey toward God.

One such script was written and directed by Jim Henson, of “Muppet” fame. In 1982, he released “The Dark Crystal,” a story in which a race of people are physically divided into two separate races, one totally good and one totally evil. This schism takes place when the “crystal of truth”, the force which binds everything together, is shattered. Dark and light are separated and the world is plunged into a reign of terror by the evil half of the once united pair.

While this film has often been derided by the Christian culture as expressing “new age” beliefs, I find that it has had lasting meaning for my Christian spiritual pilgrimage. I watched this movie when I was in the second grade – rather a treat for a family who struggled to keep food on the table. I remember sitting in the movie theater, front row center, neck straining to see the whole gigantic screen, and becoming lost in the story; lost in the struggle to unite again these two races into one flesh.

As a child, I found the story exciting, scary and fun all at the same time. As an adult, I find this story to be profound, but perhaps not in the way the writers intended. The film is filled with a strong new-age mysticism, bordering on over the top agenda-pushing. Still, the story resonates with me because this is my story. And between the pages of this script there lies a truth that has stayed with me into my adulthood: A fractured life is a life of destruction.

It has been said that a good story has many threads woven together like a tapestry - some dark and some light. Characters, innocence, tragedy, a journey toward resolution, are all individual parts of a larger picture. Lately, I have been thinking about a thread of my story that I had been avoiding.

I am not living in denial about anything (at least no more than the next person), it’s just that I have talked about it so much over the course of time that I am afraid of wearing it out, making it trite.

Yet, this one little piece of my story is so very key to who I am. It is the one piece of the puzzle of me that completes the picture, making sense of the chaos. It is the point at which I realized just how fractured my life was, and the beginning of a journey toward wholeness and health.

Question for you: What is the key part of your story? If you had to use a movie to explain your life - which one and why?

Story Telling...

Recently I applied to George Fox seminary to continue my education (and was accepted, no applause please.) As part of the application process I was asked to write a paper describing “My Spiritual Pilgrimage.” As simple as this might sound (I mean, hey, a pastor should be able to articulate his spirituality, right?), the process turned out to be rather difficult. I started the project no less than 5 times – and each time ended up chucking the whole thing. The words never felt right; never felt authentic.

It is amazing, I know. Imagine, me, without words! But, it’s true. Much to my chagrin (don’t get to use that word often) I honestly had a difficult time putting on paper my journey toward God.

So, being the self-aware person that I am, I have been asking myself the question “why?” Why was it so difficult to put into words something that was so deeply me? Why did the words come out feeling as though some other person wrote them?

I imagine it would take a team of psychologists to completely work this one out, but I have the beginnings of a simple answer in mind. When it came down to it, I had to ask myself – who was I writing this too? Who was going to read this and how was it going to impact their lives?

You see, to have a good play you need a theater and a crowd. To have a great concert requires fans and a stage. Story telling requires fire and an audience. There has to take place an essential give and take between storyteller and listener, band and fan, bard and audience. In the case of the writing of my spiritual pilgrimage – there was no clear audience; rather it was read by some anonymous group of people sitting around a boardroom table deciding my fate. What is more, there was no context for my story to take shape and make sense.

The telling of our stories as followers of Christ, or you might say the living of our stories, requires these two essential elements, audience and context, to make them come alive. Our audience is those we encounter on a day-to-day basis – our family and neighbors, co-workers and friends. These are the people to whom the good news is being spoken through our living. The context in which it is spoken is the present moment, the here and now: our culture, music, art and our social action.

In the end I did manage to write the paper, but only by giving an artificial audience and context to the writing. And, in the coming weeks, I plan to share parts of that Essay with you via this blog, in hopes that you will get to know me better, and, in the process, perhaps, get to know yourself better.

So my question for you today is: Can you articulate your spiritual pilgrimage? Where has God taken you? Where is God taking you? And, what does any of that have to do with the world around you – your neighbors, friends, co-workers and fellow students? In what context is God speaking Good News through your life, and to whom is He speaking it to?

Gather round the fire friends, and I will weave you a tail of wonder.

Christmas in July or Snow

Last winter I was sitting on my couch at home and watching the snow lazily drift down from the gray clouds above. This is one of my four favorite times of year; winter. There is a certain cleanness that comes from the white snow. A sense that the dirty world has been disinfected.

I know snow is a odd thing to write about in July, it’s just that I find it funny how we have equated snow with cleanliness – “Pure as the driven snow.” “Made white as snow,” and let’s not forget Disney’s vision of purity “Snow White.” The ability to make things white again is the chief selling point of most of our laundry detergents, of which we will pay more for the one that get’s our whites whiter.

The thing about snow is that it doesn’t really clean things at all – it just covers up the garbage, dirt, dust and general scrubbiness that is early winter. Just give it a few months or a couple of warm weeks and poof- the illusion melts. Take a look under the bushes and you will see what I mean.

It struck me that our attempt at being righteous people is something of the same sort of covering. We have created a culture in our American churches that call us to godly living- living like Jesus – WWJD? Right? And, living a Holy life is all well and good, but the holy living never can, and never will clean us up on the inside. The Apostle Paul once called this sort of righteousness “Filthy Rags” – an image that was intended to bring to mind used toilet paper. We use this holy living to clean ourselves – but it can never give us the cleansing we really need.

If God’s Spirit is not in us to clean us – from the inside out – then all this holy living is just a bunch of snow covering up the real picture underneath.

Are you letting God do the cleaning in your life? Or are you trying to do it on your own?

Icons - sacred images painted by people hundreds of years ago are finding new life.  In our sacred space here at the Abbey a great cloud of witness is gathered around the room in the form of the Iconographic work of Deborah Anderson.  We recently invited Deborah to share her work and passion with us and what a treat it was!

Mrs. Anderson shared a few thoughts Saturday and Sunday that stuck with me and forever changed how I view this ancient form of scriptural communication - here they are in bullet form (sorry, no major creativity here - just good chunks of meat!)

• Icons are written, not painted - though the writing involves paint, the Icons themselves are physical representations of the scriptural stories and communicate eternal truth in the same way that scripture does.
• Just as you would not know the people in my family photo albums, Icons mean little to people until they get to know the stories attached to the icons themselves.  
• Icons are not "graven images" or "idols" they are aids to prayer, drawing us into God's story and always pointing to Jesus.
• Icons are not "bad art" - but their perspective is different (rather than looking to a finite point, we are looking into eternity) and they tell stories all at once.  This is intentional, to keep the story the focus and God the perspective - it literally keeps us in the here and now.
• Praying with Icons can be a wonderful experience and I encourage you to try it today.  The icons here are available for prayer Monday, Wednesday and Fridays every week until the display is returned to Deborah Anderson sometime in December.  Come and experience God in a whole new way.
  

Reforming Reformation

This comment was left in response to my previous blog, Tradition!  I didn't want anyone to miss it, so here it is as a post.   - Jamie

When I think of "tradition" I have a mixed reaction. On the one hand having tradition leaves me feeling comfortable with the familiar. Some things in my Christian experience have continued to nourish me and draw me closer to who God is- i.e. quiet prayer, meditative walks, an my familiar way of taking communion (I grew up Episcopal). And yet for me, I also find myself not wanting to get TOO comfortable, for it is then that I miss a fresh, new face of who God is. I am struck with the statement of Martin Luther when commenting on what to call "The Reformation," where he said, "the Church should never stop reforming." As I think of my own personal theology, I have found myself "reforming my beliefs." Instead of upholding the traditional view of women in the church setting, through the years my view of women in church has expanded beyond the bounds of traditional roles. That's just one example. I suppose those areas in my life that have "reformed" flow directly out of my encounters with God, much like Jacob wrestling with the God-man in the middle of the night.

At the same time, it is a difficult task to hold both the old and new. Again, ambivalence- the both/and, that place where I try to keep a tension of both the old and the new.

-sailbluewater (aka Greg Malone)

Tradition!

This is the one time I wish I could insert music for my title – Tradition!  Tradition!  Tradition is perhaps the best thing the mainline church has to offer of community.  Tradition is hip – old is new – candles are cool!  This is obviously a trend in ascetics and trends are just that – trendy.  But, this is our opportunity to make faith relevant to the community around us through our practice of tradition.

How can we accomplish this?  Do we simply continue what we’ve been doing for the past two hundred years, exactly as we’ve been doing it?  I think not.

Tradition left as it is becomes irrelevant.  What was happening 200 years ago that sparked a certain tradition is not happening today – we are dealing with different times.  So, we need to look deeply at our traditions.  Some of them need to disappear for a time, others need to be re-imagined, made relevant for today and we need to make some new traditions. 

What would it look like to re-imagine the traditions of the past? What new traditions could we create that would speak to our world today?  Which traditions do we practice have become irrelevant?

The enemy of hope...

What do we need for the church of today to survive into the future?  Is it better pastors; more production; better music; more comfortable pew’s?  These things may make up part of the answer, but the thing they have in common is the one thing we need most – Hope.

If the church is going to thrive in a new world it has to have hope that it can be of consequence there.  Hope that it can have a transformation impact on the world.  Hope that it (church itself) can be better than it is now. 

Nostalgia is the greatest enemy of hope. We humans love nostalgia and hold as tightly to it as we do our memories. However, nostalgia is really the thought that the past was better than the present and that it can never be any better than it was.  If the future can never be as good (or better) than the past – there is no hope for the future.  Nostalgia says – it can’t be better than that, so don’t bother trying! 

Christ calls us to Faith, Hope and Love – Faith is remembering (how things really were), Hope is belief that the future can be better than the present, and Love… God is Love.  He is standing just ahead of us, calling us forward into the future, into Him, into complete – unadulterated, Love.

What do you think?  How has nostalgia affected the church? What nostalgia surrounding church have you held to?

A chance not to be missed...

Historically, every 500 years the world changes.  The reformation, the printing press, the industrial revolution all occurred in one of these 500-year cycles.  Now we sit on the cusp of yet another world revolution – and the question I ask myself is; “What place will the Christian faith have in this new world?”  “Will it survive?”

The answer I believe is, yes!  Emphatically, yes.  But to survive the church will have to do what it has always done and that is to change, adapt, and reorient.  But change is never comfortable and always experienced as loss.

This is our chance to be the next Charles Wesley, John Luther, St. Francis or Augustine.  We can be the great change agents in our churches if we are willing to follow God’s lead and go where few others have gone before.

Can we change without loosing our tradition and our history?  What do we need to survive?  In what ways do we need to change to be relevant to the future world?  What do we have to offer the community around us?